Yes, it was an overhead end-dog carriage with 300hp DC drive, set up to handle 8, 9 and 10 blocks 6-42 diameter. There were already two slow down buttons one was 90%, the other was 80%, and computer varied the saw speed based on the diameter of the block. 6-12 block was 850fpm with a rip out of 950fpm where 36-42 block had a feed rate of 350fpm with a rip out of 400fpm. What we found was that some of the sawyers were using the slowdown buttons to give them more time to get the next block ready. When you were running small wood that only went thru the block chippers and the first set of saws, an average of 10 blocks per min was not uncommon.

The original set up had a top and bottom rail and the block chippers were separated from the double cut twins and only ran a 200hp DC. After (upgrading-downgrading) from a set of double cut twins to a set of single cut quads, the whole processing area was shortened up and the block chippers were mounted on the first set of bandmills and the larger DC drive was installed to handle a double top rail carriage with drop down knees for dogging. The charger area was also shortened up and we switched over from an overhead end dog charger with an in house built scanner, to an under belly charger with a double scanning set up. The under belly charger would allow the block to shift around as it was moved so a retractable clamp was installed. It worked real good for punching the big blocks out of the charger and into the saw shack.

During all of the upgrades, the basic concept of the lube system remained the same, although the delivery method was improved and moved so that the tank that supplied all four bandmills could be filled while the mills were running. Where separate tanks had been mounted directly on each of the twins.

The resaws used a simple gravity system with an actuator. All five of the edgers (2, 4, 6 Sherman gang edgers, Newnes 6 five moveable saw edger, and a Coe 2 five moveable saw edger) used straight water on the guides along with a misting system.

No oil products were allowed to make contact with the wood, because a water based stain will not will not soak into the wood where oil has soaked in, and all the Hem-fir, Doug-fir and other white woods was stained as it came out of the planer to give it a unified color for appearance reasons. The cedar products were not plained. However, they would be stained by the customer who do not like having oily chain marks showing up on the side of there house, or one end of the board taking stain better then the other, because an oil based lube was used for the saw guides and as the block starts into the cut all the accumulated lube from the saw running between cuts flows over the wood.